By Bret Rachlin on 10/30/2009 3:19 PM

Earlier this month a West Virginia county gathered first responders together for a table-top exercise to focus on its emergency response procedures. The county used a mock chemical spill as its emergency (Source: WVNS-TV, October 17, 2009, “First Responders Gather for Table Top Exercise"). The mock chemical spill targeted an area near a school, along with a hospital and several businesses, to simulate the kind of chaos that can ensue in the case of an emergency.

Training drills help emergency personnel determine how prepared they are and what areas require additional practice. Concerning chemical spills, many schools’ emergency plans center on spills occurring within the school. However, what happens when the spill is from outside the school? Recently, a chemical spill near Indianapolis, IN, prompted a nearby school to keep its students and staff in ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 10/23/2009 1:53 PM

Education Week’s “Inside School Research” blog had an interesting post this week about school shootings. Instead of highlighting school shooting issues, such as preventing them or mitigating their impact, the blog focused on a study that will be published this week in Psychological Science that says “school shootings are more likely to occur in states with a strongly rooted ‘culture of honor.’”

According to Debbie Viadero, the blog’s author, the report describes “societies that exhibit a culture of honor put ‘a high premium on strength and social regard in connection with one's person, f ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 10/16/2009 2:34 PM

Next week is America’s Safe Schools Week. Sponsored by the National School Safety Center along with state governors and state school superintendents, the goal of this campaign is to motivate all those people involved with schools, including administrators, teachers, parents, students, and law enforcement to advocate “vigorously” for school safety.

Please click on the link above to read in depth about a list of strategies for schools to implement to improve safety. Key strategies include:

- Convince your school board, superintendent and principals that quality education requires safe, disciplined and peaceful schools.
- Establish a systematic, district wide mandatory incident reporting system.
- Develop safety policies.
Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 10/9/2009 7:52 AM

Since the beginning of the 2007-8 school year, 67 Chicago students have died violently. Most of them have been killed just blocks away from school grounds, including Derrion Albert, the 16-year-old honor student who was beaten after getting caught on his way home between two rival South Side gangs (Source: New York Times, October 7, 2009, Focus in Chicago: Students at Risk of Violence).

To counteract this cycle of violence, Chicago has hired a new chief officer of public schools, Ron Huberman, a former police officer, who plans to use statistics and probability to improve the safety of students when they commute to and from school. Although controversy surrounds his plan, especially since it costs $60 million over two years to implement and only focuses on 10,000 high risk high school students, Huberman argues tha ... Read More »

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By Bret Rachlin on 10/2/2009 8:06 AM

Since this blog typically focuses on K-12 school security and safety issues and often the stories highlight security incidents, I thought it would be nice to profile a different story this week that centers on higher education. Recently, the Daily Beast blog ranked the top 25 safest college campuses (Source: Campus Safety Magazine, September 28, 2009, Blog Ranks Top 25 Safest Campuses) (Please see the link for a list of the 25 schools.).

According to the blog, “The Daily Beast took the two most recent years of raw data from almost 9,000 schools and then further analyzed more than 4,000 (excluding two-year colleges, standalone graduate schools, etc.) over more than 50 different crit ... Read More »

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By Bret Rachlin on 9/25/2009 3:04 PM

Have you implemented a security plan for your high school sporting events? After the shooting deaths of two teenagers (not on school grounds), Manatee school district in Florida has increased its security at all high school football games and other events (Source: HeraldTribune.com, September 18, 2009, Manatee officials beef up school security).

Event attendees can expect to see more police officers and to be scanned by metal detectors or patted down for weapons when they come to football games. District officials also plan to ban backpacks from school events. Unfortunately, the increased security could lead to higher ticket prices and will most certainly lead to a slower entry into the stadium as officers check fans coming to the game.

Overall, in light of the recent shooting incidents, Manatee ... Read More »

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By Bret Rachlin on 9/17/2009 4:02 PM

If your school had a non-fatal shooting just outside of your campus (by an entrance) at 8:30 am, what kind of day would you expect to have? Would it be close to a regular day? Deer Valley High School in Antioch, California, faced that reality earlier this week and attempted to have as normal day as possible once order was restored (Source: San Jose Mercury News, September 16, 2009, Antioch high school off lockdown after student shot).

According to the article, Deer Valley principal Scott Bergerhouse said, “We’ll have a regular day here at Deer Valley High School as best we can.” Obviously, when a school shooting occurs the rest of the day will be anything but regular. However, if your school district has a sound emergency plan that can be implemented effectively, then there’s a good chance that the school can go on with its s ... Read More »

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By Bret Rachlin on 9/11/2009 3:38 PM

Do anonymous tip programs work in schools? Douglas County, Colorado, would answer that question with a spirited “yes” after the district’s new anonymous text tip program helped lead to arresting a student who developed a “kill list” and had access to weapons (Source: Campus Safety Magazine, September 8, 2009, Text Tip Program Reveals Student ‘Kill List’).

Text-A-Tip, an Internet-based application that costs $5,000 annually, is a text message tip hotline students use to communicate with police anonymously to share information that they wouldn’t normally share. To achieve the most benefits from implementing an anonymous tips program, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Youth Education Program Coordinator Phyllis Harvey recommends the following:

- Get buy-in of administrators, students and police – make sur ... Read More »

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By Bret Rachlin on 9/4/2009 1:08 PM

According to a recent national survey, 25 percent of K-12 teachers worry about student weapons and more than 10 percent of teachers “believe their schools are unprepared to protect their students (Source: Campus Safety Magazine via ADT Security Services press release, August 29, 2009, Survey Shows 1 in 4 Teachers Worry about Student Weapons).” Additionally, 75 percent of teachers surveyed “say their schools are somewhat prepared to protect students on the campus.”

While the survey included only 400 K-12 teachers, Zogby International, a reputable public research and survey organization, conducted the survey, giving it credibility. Obviously, without having in depth conversations with teachers, it’s unknown how concerned they are about the safety of themselves and students at their schools, as well as how prepared their schools actually are for dealing with ... Read More »

By Bret Rachlin on 8/28/2009 2:46 PM

Schools in Southern Maryland plan to launch a new safety and security program this year called “Secure your gear.” Designed to encourage students to store personal items and valuables properly to avoid theft, the initiative should also make students think twice before stealing devices, such as iPods and cell phones (Source: Southern Maryland Newspapers, August 26, 2009, Priority put on school safety and security initiatives).

With more and more students using electronic devices, including those that provide new ways to enhance their learning, there are more opportunities for other students to steal or damage the devices. Since many of these items can be used for educational purposes or students’ parents demand that they have them, such as cell phones, banning the items is not a reasonable option. While they may create more work for school resource officers ... Read More »